In the prior art, air conditioning systems are used in a wide variety of fields. In the air conditioning systems refrigerants are used, which have properties adapted to the respective purpose. In conventional air conditioning systems the refrigerants contain fluorinated greenhouse gases, in particular fluorinated hydrocarbons.
With a growing environmental awareness and ever stricter legal requirements, for example of the EU order on fluorinated greenhouse gases, so-called natural refrigerants move into focus more and more. However, these refrigerants in general are combustible, explosive and/or toxic, i.e. in the broadest sense harmful to human health.
Persons in the environment of air conditioning systems using such refrigerants, in particular in the rooms air-conditioned therewith, therefore must be protected from these refrigerants. This is of utmost importance in particular in the case of a refrigerant leakage.
Air conditioning systems with natural refrigerants also are used for air conditioning relatively small rooms. For example, this can be leisure vehicles, i.e. caravans, trailers, mobile homes, temporary housings, accommodation containers, etc. Persons present in such small rooms to be air-conditioned must be protected even from smallest amounts of exiting refrigerant. This requires an effective and robust system for leakage detection, which prevents the exit of refrigerant due to leakage or at least minimizes the exiting amount of refrigerant. This is the only way to provide for a safe operation of an air conditioning system with a natural refrigerant.
It therefore is the object of the invention to provide an air conditioning system in which a refrigerant leakage can be detected in a simple and reliable way. In particular, it should be possible to detect even small refrigerant leakages.